


a flame in two cupped hands

by alasse



Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: M/M, Origin Story, Originally Posted on LiveJournal
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-05
Updated: 2014-08-05
Packaged: 2018-02-11 20:02:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,685
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2081292
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alasse/pseuds/alasse
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>An origin story, a love story. How Arthur met Eames, long before the inception job, and fell for him until everything got screwed up, and then fell for him again, somewhere inside Robert Fischer’s head.</p>
            </blockquote>





	a flame in two cupped hands

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted on livejournal in 2010, [here](http://alasse.livejournal.com/127247.html). With, still, many thanks to laulan and syllic for their encouragement and help.

Arthur never set out to make a living out of navigating people’s dreams. 

He was in college when he met Dominic Cobb for the first time, in a karate class, of all places. (His guidance counselor in high school had “strongly encouraged” Arthur to enroll in a physical extra-curricular, because he was “a bit… uh, highly strung”, and apparently learning to kick somebody’s ass with deadly precision was meant to help with that.) Arthur wasn’t sure that it helped – most people who’d ever met him would say no – but he’d found a particular kind of enjoyment in the applied logic and organization of katas, so he’d stuck with it.

So, Cobb introduced himself after Arthur thoroughly schooled him.

“Jesus. I thought I wasn’t too bad, but you’ve proven me wrong,” he said, a self-deprecating grin on his face that immediately charmed Arthur. “Dominic Cobb, nice to meet you,” he continued, offering a hand to shake.

“Arthur,” he replied, shaking the proffered hand. “Are you – uh, are you a student?” he asked, squinting at the man in front of him. It wasn’t the age, not really… there was just something that told him this guy had lived a little more than your average student.

Cobb laughed. “No, no. The Stanford psychology department is funding some of my research – dream research.”

Arthur raised his eyebrows. “Never thought researchers would go for karate.”

“Dream research isn’t quite like your average nose-to-the-grindstone at the lab type of job… it’s – well, it’s very peculiar. Very physical, in it’s own way,” Cobb replied, with an enigmatic shrug. “What about you? You’re undergrad?”

“Uh, yeah. Architecture.” That was actually oversimplifying – he was a couple of credits shy of finishing an Architecture major and a Physics minor, and he’d crashed more than a few Philosophy classes. 

“Huh. I’m an architect myself.”

“How does an architect end up in dream research?” Arthur asked, honestly confused.

Cobb gave him a speculative look. “Why don’t you stop by our lab tomorrow? It’ll be… eye-opening. We’re in Jordan Hall, in a tiny space by the SPAN lab. Ask around.”

“Okay. Thanks, Mr. Cobb.”

Cobb smiled. “Please, call me Dom. Hope to see you tomorrow, Arthur.”

And that was it: that was how Arthur got pulled into it.

Between a PhD that would force him to choose among his passions and just dreaming them all together, dreaming seemed like the best option. It was a legal option, back then, anyway – dream theory research, dream therapy, the occasional government assignment. That it required every ounce of his abilities, physical and mental, was no coincidence; Cobb knew how to pick them. Maybe it was the only option, for a guy like him, the only way to do everything he wanted with no barriers except his own. 

So Dom taught him how to dream, and then he met Mal, who taught him how to wake up. 

She was the one who came up with the idea of totems, unique objects that would help them tell dream from reality no matter what. Dom thought they were unnecessary at first, giving Mal indulgent smiles when she spun her top, Arthur a raised eyebrow when he rolled the die. Looking back, Arthur wondered if Mal was so adamant about separating dreams from reality because she knew she wouldn’t be able to, eventually. (After she died, Dom used a totem for the first time – hers. It changed him fundamentally, her death; Arthur’s sure it changed most of what he ever believed about dreaming, and about life.) 

They worked well, the three of them, but there was always more to learn. Dom taught him how to dream, Mal taught him how to wake up, and then he met Eames... Eames, who taught him how to lie.

+++

It was before Mal died, when their work was still within the boundaries of legality and they needed someone to navigate the shadier side of things.

“A thief, Dom? Really?” Arthur asked, skimming through the file he’d put together on Dom’s say-so.

“Not just a thief, Arthur,” Dom replied with an enigmatic smile. “You’ll understand when he gets here – he has skills we need to complete the assignment.”

“And you think the CIA won’t mind that we’re using him?” 

Mal raised an incredulous eyebrow. “The CIA? Mind? I never took you to be naïve, Arthur.”

Arthur rolled his eyes. “Good point.”

“Listen, don’t worry about it. It’ll be an easy assignment, in and out. I’m sure you’ll get along just fine with Mr. Eames,” Dom reassured him.

Arthur should’ve known, even then, that when Dominic Cobb said not to worry, you would be well advised to do the opposite.

+

It figured that Arthur would meet Eames on the one day he was late to work, on the one day he was out of control and rushing and not at all fucking ready. 

“I’m so sorry I’m late, Dom – the subway was a mess, you know how it…” Arthur trailed off when he saw Dom wasn’t alone, feeling his cheeks heat with embarrassment. He felt so _young_ , still, compared to Mal and Dom who’d done so much, seen so much, just by being asleep; it wasn’t something he was used to, not when he’d always felt so much older than his peers. Things like this betrayed his youth and relative inexperience to the two people he’d come to admire most – and, apparently, to a perfect stranger.

The stranger turned to look at him and Arthur felt even more annoyed – it had to be Mr. Eames, even if the pictures he’d found hadn’t quite prepared him for the real thing. _The very attractive real thing_ , some traitorous part of him said, but Arthur crushed the thought mercilessly. He wasn’t walking down that road, no way. 

“Well. You must be Arthur,” the man said with a smirk, looking him up and down.

Arthur gave him a curt nod. “Mr. Eames.”

“Just Eames is fine, darling. More than fine,” he replied, smirk turning into the kind of smile Arthur had never been in the receiving end of. 

He was still a little shell-shocked when Eames and Dom walked off to discuss something about the assignment, and when Mal walked in, giving him a curious glance, he couldn’t help but say, “I feel like I’ve been eye-raped,” cringing immediately after. Way to sound mature.

Mal laughed for ten minutes straight, and then forced him to go to dinner with her, Dom and Eames. Arthur often forgot how evil she could be – the pretty smile got him every single time. 

+

He didn’t understand what Eames was there to do if it wasn’t to steal something until the first time they hooked up to the PASIV device to practice. 

Dom had designed the dream, Arthur was the dreamer, and Mal was the subject; Arthur had to figure out the easiest way to trick her into revealing the confidential information they needed. The dreamscape was a city not unlike San Francisco, and they were in a hotel downtown – Mal travelled to San Francisco often, and Dom had improvised from there. After a couple of false starts, Arthur found her in the bar, talking to Dom. 

Which was clearly not right, because Dom had stayed outside, choosing to monitor rather than go in himself. And yet there Dom was, making Mal laugh and charming the hell out of her; generally doing pretty much what Arthur was supposed to do according to the carefully laid out plan they’d come up with. 

Dom seemed a little too slick, and Arthur couldn’t tell if it was because of the part he was playing, or if there was something more – something he was missing. He approached them hesitantly, torn between staying in character or just asking them what the hell was going on.

“Dom, what the hell is going on?” It was easier to choose the latter approach – he hated being in the dark about anything.

Dom turned, eyebrow raised with subtle impatience, the tell-tale sign that he was humoring somebody. When he saw Arthur, however, his expression changed lighting-fast, too fast for Arthur to discern, before settling back into slight disdain. 

“Excuse me?”

“Excuse you? Dom, you weren’t supposed to come in. If you felt I couldn’t handle this then you should’ve just said so instead of making me waste time by prepping for days,” Arthur told him, hard-pressed to keep the annoyance out of his voice, hands curling into fists involuntarily.

Dom smiled then, broadly, clearly amused at Arthur’s expense and giving a pointed glance at Arthur’s fists. “Don’t get so pissy at me, darling – this wasn’t actually my idea. But if it makes you feel any better, I’m sure you could handle anything you set your mind to.”

Arthur’s mouth dropped open, and Mal burst out laughing.

“Of course!” she exclaimed. “Oh, Dom is going to kill me for not seeing it sooner.”

“Seeing – Mal, what’s going on?” Arthur asked, looking between Dom and her in confusion.

Dom smiled again, almost dirtily, and Dom had never looked at Arthur like that, not _ever_. So it couldn’t be Dom, it just couldn’t. It had to be…

Dom shifted, and between one blink and the next, Eames was standing right there, expression unchanged. 

“You’re not just a thief,” Arthur said quietly, pieces falling into place. “You’re a forger.”

“Got it in one, love,” Eames replied with a wink.

One of Mal’s projections bumped into him before he could answer, and he felt an unexpected shock at the warm hand that steadied him. He glanced up, meeting Eames’ eyes – clear and not mocking, for once. He opened his mouth, tried to find something to say… and woke up before he could.

Dom was waiting by his cot in the lab, eyes dancing with mirth. “He got you too, huh?”

“Yes,” Arthur replied sharply. “Very amusing experiment, Dom.”

“I thought so.”

Arthur rolled his eyes. Dom and Mal seemed older a lot of the time, sure, but sometimes – sometimes they were worse than little kids, playing pretend. 

Prep for the assignment went easily after that, Arthur reluctantly fascinated at the idea of incorporating a forger into the plans they had. They shared dreams a few times over, often enough that Arthur noticed Eames didn’t use a totem.

“How can you tell?” he asked Eames once, when the two of them went in alone, after they’d woken up and Arthur had rolled his die discreetly.

“Tell what, pet?” 

“Whether you’re still dreaming.”

Eames’ lips quirked up into a smile. “You mean why don’t I use something like Mal’s spinning top?” At Arthur’s nod, he continued. “I’m not sure. I guess I haven’t yet found something alluring enough that I can’t have in reality – much like Cobb, I imagine. Dreaming is fun, don’t get me wrong, but I wouldn’t like to dream forever. Reality is far more entertaining.” He paused, and his smile turned dark. “Besides, I hardly think you’d be so damnably alluring if you were just a projection, darling. That’s all the confirmation I need for now.”

Arthur’s eyes widened, and he didn’t move an inch as Eames brushed his lips with the lightest kiss before standing up and walking out of the dream lab. 

+

They didn’t talk about it. 

Eames slowly raised the stakes, pushing Arthur’s boundaries more and more, brushing past him when he didn’t need to, settling an arm around his shoulders when it made no sense for him to do so, dropping pet name after pet name, eroding the spaces between them until Arthur couldn’t stand it any more, until he felt he had to kiss Eames or die. It was absolutely infuriating – it went against every rule Arthur had set for himself, when he decided to follow Dominic into the dreamscape and all its promises. He’d told himself he’d always stay in control, that he’d never allow any emotional variables to disturb that control. And yet, here he was, ever so slightly off his game because of a man who wore paisley without a hint of irony.

He needed some advice. The next day, he went in early and found Dom already working.

“Dom?” 

Dom looked up from the files he was reviewing. “You’re here even more early than usual,” he said, eyebrows raised in surprise. “I hope you brought me coffee.”

“Extra strong,” Arthur confirmed, putting the Styrofoam cup on top of the desk.

“Hmm. Okay, so what’s going on?” Dom asked, looking at Arthur suspiciously.

“What do you mean?” 

“Arthur. Come on. You’re superlative at your job, but that’s never included random acts of coffee enabling.”

Arthur grimaced, sat down on the edge of Dom’s desk. “Fine. I may have a… it’s not really a problem, not exactly. It’s a hypothetical, uh, situation.”

“Okay...”

“Right. Doing what we do is fascinating, to say the least. But it’s also a bit dangerous. I mean, being able to build anything, to go anywhere, to actually go into somebody’s _mind_ …” Arthur paused, considering how to phrase his actual question. “How do you keep yourself together in the middle of that? I mean, without a lot of control, without order -”

“You’re scared of dreaming when you’re in anything less than perfect control,” Dom interrupted softly, his eyes seeing into Arthur with the kind of ease he could never get used to.

“Yeah,” Arthur admitted, the sharp lines of his body shattering ever so slightly when he released a heavy breath. “I just feel that I have to keep my real life separate from the job. And to do that, it has to be properly regulated.”

Dom considered him for a second, rubbing his mouth absently with his fingers. “Arthur… I get where you’re coming from. But, the thing is, to do that? To be a hundred percent in control, you’d basically have to eliminate feeling anything – you’d have to eliminate your real life. And I think _that’s_ the real danger.” 

Arthur nodded, said nothing. Before going back to his file, however, Dom glanced at the picture of Eames pinned the giant corkboard where they laid out the dreamscapes and plans, and then glanced back and Arthur meaningfully. Clearly, Dom wasn’t fooled by the notion that this was hypothetical.

For the rest of the day he couldn’t think stop thinking about Dom’s words, about the warning implicit in them.

Eames showed up during lunch time with Arthur’s favorite sandwich and his least favorite drink, smirking, obviously waiting for Arthur to say something. 

“A bubblegum frappucino, Eames? Really?”

Eames grinned, clearly pleased at the reaction. “It’s for your inner child, darling,” he told him, before walking away.

Arthur stared after him until he was completely gone from sight. Maybe taking the initiative and making a move would be better in the long run than having to constantly fight against the attraction he felt. Maybe letting himself go _was_ the best way to stay in control.

Arthur nodded to himself, decision made. After that, he breezed through the reports he had to write.

\+ 

“Working late again, love?”

Arthur looked from the blueprints he was picking apart to see Eames leaning in the doorway of his small makeshift office, the picture of nonchalance. 

Without bothering to answer, he walked around his desk and toward Eames. He didn’t stop until he had him pressed against the door, until he was kissing the breath out of him.

“Didn’t know you had it in you, darling,” Eames whispered against his lips afterwards.

Arthur gave him a disbelieving look. “Yes you fucking did.”

Eames started laughing, an open, delighted laughter Arthur had never heard from him before. He cut it off with another kiss.

+

They had sex for the first time after they finished the CIA assignment. 

“Great job, everybody,” Cobb said, the moment they woke up. He made eye-contact with all of them, patiently waited until Mal and Arthur double-checked they were actually awake, and then smiled. “We can write everything up tomorrow morning. Let’s all just go home, relax, celebrate an assignment well-done, okay?”

“Best idea you’ve had yet, boss,” Eames replied with a quick grin. He stood up, and put a hand out in front of Arthur. “Ready to go, then?”

Arthur glanced up at him, met his hopeful eyes, and put his hand in Eames’, allowed himself to be pulled up. He didn’t even look at Dom or Mal before following Eames out of the lab - he’d get enough of their mocking smiles tomorrow. 

Tonight he just wanted Eames, wanted him in the most irrevocable, intense way he’d ever wanted _anything_. It had been growing inside him, this need he’d never felt before, growing with every kiss and every innocuous (and not so innocuous) brush of his body against Eames’. And Arthur took a deep breath, and remembered to let himself feel it, if only for now. If only for a while.

They headed to Arthur’s apartment, no words exchanged, and for the first time since they started whatever this is between them, Eames didn’t leave Arthur clinging to the doorway, mussed and unbearably horny, but followed him right inside.

Arthur paused in the middle of the living room, doubts catching up with him. What was he doing? This was going to change things, irrevocably, and he wasn’t sure if he’d be able to handle that. If he should even try.

“Oh, no you don’t, pet – you don’t get to take this back now,” Eames whispered, coming to stand behind him, inching closer and closer until he was plastered to Arthur’s back, his hands coming to rest on Arthur’s hips, the heat and scent of him dissipating his doubts.

He turned in Eames’ arms and kissed him hard. “Not taking it back,” he told him, meant it down to his bone-marrow. He walked Eames backward to his bedroom, kissing him all the while. 

Undressing Eames was incredible - after Arthur pulled his shirt off, he couldn’t stop running his hands over the smooth golden skin, making Eames moan. Undressing him was incredible, yes, but when Eames stopped him with a rakish grin and said, “My turn, darling. I’ve been _dying_ to get you out of your clothes,” well, that was just cruel. In the best fucking way.

Eames fucked Arthur, then, and it wasn’t perfect – Arthur fumbled with the condom, Eames dropped the lube and spilled too much on the sheets. They were a little bit too eager, and Eames chuffed out a breathless laugh when one of Arthur’s kisses missed his mouth entirely and ended up on his nose, but they found their rhythm soon enough. It wasn’t perfect, but it was real, and that was even better. 

When it was over, Arthur was boneless, sated. He wanted to say _stay_ , maybe say _stay for good_ , but they’d left so much unsaid by this point, that he closed his eyes, let his breathing settle.

Maybe Eames heard anyway – he settled into sleep behind Arthur, a hand on his hip. 

+

Eames had another job lined up, in Croatia, and he left Arthur with a deep, bruising kiss and an insufficient explanation.

“Gotta see a man about -”

“A horse? Really? Isn’t that just a little too cliché even for you, Eames?”

“About another _man_ , actually,” Eames replied, grinning. “But there’s no such thing as too cliché, love.”

Arthur didn’t see him again for six months, until, late one night, there was a knock on his door and Eames stood outside, a dilapidated duffel bag in his hand.

“Eames, what -”

“I guess I should be grateful you’re such a stick in the mud, darling – only you’d be at home on a Saturday night,” Eames interrupted him, before dropping the duffel bag and pulling Arthur into a kiss.

After they had sex, Eames spooned behind Arthur, running light fingers up and down one of his arms.

“How long can you stay?” Arthur asked in a whisper that sounded too loud in the stillness of the night.

“Two days,” Eames replied, unusually somber, before blinking the seriousness away with a grin. “I have a job in Montenegro – the Balkans are quite profitable this time of year.”

Arthur rolled his eyes. “I’m sure.” He paused, took a deep breath. “So, uh – come by when you’re done, okay?”

Eames leaned up on one arm to stare at him for a moment, something soft in his eyes. “Will do, darling.”

Arthur nodded, and then turned away from Eames, suddenly needing some distance. He’d let himself have this, let go some of his control, but he couldn’t turn what they had into everything. Because when it was over, and with someone like Eames, it _would_ be over, Arthur might end up more frayed than he’d bargained for.

Even so, he couldn’t stop his hand from resting over Eames’ arm when it went around Arthur’s waist. It made him feel vulnerable, this pull Eames had on him, but he didn’t know how to fight it. 

+

After that, Arthur got postcards, every couple of weeks. A postcard from a tiny village in Hungary with a name he couldn’t quite pronounce, then a postcard from Mexico, the pyramids of Teotihuacán impossibly big in the picture; postcards from Lesotho and from Edinburgh, Tokyo and St. Petersburg. 

There were packages, too, of random cheap trinkets – plastic Corona key chains, two t-shirts proclaiming the inadequacy of the wearer’s boyfriend and his present-giving skills, condoms from every single city Eames visited, and a stuffed parakeet. It was crazy, and it was strangely endearing: entirely Eames. 

Arthur wore one of the shirts on an emergency coffee run late one night, and a girl grinned after reading the epithet on his chest. He wondered exactly what it said about their relationship, such as it was, that they’d effectively defined it by a gag t-shirt.

It was probably fitting, actually.

+

Things went to shit in Vegas.

“We’re only gonna ask you one more time – where the fuck is he?”

Arthur raised his eyebrows to the man who was leaning over him, all but spitting in his face, face red with anger. “And I’ll say it one more time: I. don’t. know,” he enunciated carefully.

The guy snarled and punched him, the hit making Arthur’s head snap back. Christ, he hated the complete impotence of being tied up, hated that he couldn’t control his body’s reactions. 

“Easy there, Jones,” the other thug said, “he won’t be able to tell us where Eames is if you knock him out.”

“I won’t tell you, whether you knock me out or not,” Arthur replied calmly.

The man grinned, a nasty smile that made Arthur’s blood run cold. “I wouldn’t be too sure about that. One of our friends is on his way here with a PASIV device…”

Arthur did his absolute best to control his reaction, to seem just as nonchalant as he’d been up to now, but something must’ve come through, because both men started laughing. 

Shit. He’d had training, of course, Cobb had made sure of that, but not as much as he’d like… not as much as he felt he needed to keep them well away from anything related to Eames. _Emotion’s the weak spot in the subconscious, Arthur, always remember that_ , Dom’s voice echoed in his head, and he focused on that, on the steady cadence of Dom’s words in his memory so he wouldn’t give into panic. He _couldn’t_ panic, couldn’t afford to, not if he wanted to get through this in one piece, and to get Eames through in one piece.

A couple of hours later – and three more rounds of hopelessly unoriginal questioning – one of his kidnappers got a call. The PASIV device was here.

While the two thugs went off to open the door, and, god, if he’d been a little less beat up he would’ve gotten out of the bindings without too much difficulty, he almost felt insulted. 

Arthur allowed himself exactly six seconds to feel the horror of his situation, six seconds to unleash fear and pain and worry he was keeping tightly locked. When the six seconds were up, he closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and locked it all back up again. These fuckers weren’t getting anything from him, not awake, not asleep. Not if he could help it; Eames wasn’t going down because of him.

“Ready to dream us an answer, slick?” 

Arthur met the man’s cold eyes, and gave him his best bitchface. “Bring it on.”

And right at that moment, Eames and Cobb crashed into the room they were holding Arthur and took the thugs out with ruthless efficiency. 

Dom knelt beside Arthur and untied him, looking him over with worried eyes. “You okay? I’m sorry we took so long – looking for somebody in a casino is a lot harder than you’d think.”

“I’m okay, Dom. Thanks for coming for me.”

Dom scoffed. “Please, as if we wouldn’t. Eames was going out of his mind with worry.”

Arthur glanced up at Eames, unable to ignore him any longer. Eames was staring at the scene in what looked like shock, eyes going from the kidnappers to the PASIV device to Arthur, gaze pausing on Arthur’s bruises. There was something in his face that scared Arthur, something like pain, like resignation - something like giving up.

Dom delivered the guys who’d taken Arthur to the local cops – without any mention of Eames, of course – and Arthur got checked out by the hotel’s doctor, who gave him decent amount of painkillers for his troubles. 

“You want to clean up? We have a room,” Eames told him, the first words he’d spoken since the rescue.

Arthur nodded his acquiescence and followed Eames to a suite, desperate for a bathroom. He knew something was up with Eames and that they’d have to talk about it, but if it was what he feared… if worse came to the worse, he couldn’t do it like this, couldn’t face Eames without his best game face on. And that included a hot shower, a shave, and a three-piece suit. 

When he got out of the bathroom, he saw Eames standing by the window, a packed duffel bag next to his feet. He was playing with one of the casino’s chips, a red and gold chip with _Aria_ written across it in cursive. 

“You’re leaving?” 

Eames whirled around to face him, eyes widening briefly as he looked Arthur up and down. “I – yeah. Yeah, I think it’s for the best.”

“ _You_ think it’s for the best,” Arthur repeated. “And what about what I think?”

Eames ran a hand down his face, suddenly looking impossibly tired. “Arthur, those men took you because of me. Because of my work – because I’m a thief and a con-man, and generally not a good person. And I’m usually proud of that, really, but –” he broke off, took a shuddering breath. “But last night I got a call from Cobb saying you were missing. Last night, two men kidnapped you and hurt you and they were about to enter your dreams, all because of _me_ ,” he said, his voice trembling. “And I won’t let that happen again. Not ever.”

There was something so final in his voice, in his eyes, that Arthur took a step back.

“So that’s it, then? It – whatever we had, it’s just over?”

“It has to be.” With that, Eames pocketed the poker chip, picked up the duffel bag and walked toward the door. He paused right before opening it, turned and gave Arthur one last, sad smile. “Goodbye, darling.”

Fucking Vegas.

+

Things went relatively back to normal. If Arthur became even more of a workaholic and took to spending even more time at the office, Cobb and Mal were kind enough not to call him on it, even after he spent almost every second of his down-time doing karate and muay thai and every other class he could talk himself into instead of sleeping. He could function perfectly well with three hours of sleep, anyway, who needed more when your job was dreaming? 

It was only one day, at about two a.m. in the morning while they were prepping for an assignment for MIT, that Mal said anything at all.

“Fear is one of the most powerful emotions, you know? Even more than love, sometimes. A lot of the time.”

Arthur glanced up from the layout he was drawing. “What?”

Mal looked at him, in that way of hers that seemed to see absolutely everything, and shrugged. “Sometimes we get scared, Arthur. It doesn’t mean we don’t care.”

Arthur swallowed, and gave Mal a sharp nod. He appreciated what Mal was trying to do, but he couldn’t let himself think about Eames – he couldn’t wallow in the memories or the could-have-beens. All he could do was push it away and keep going. 

So, yes, things went relatively back to normal, and then Mal died. Nothing was normal ever again, not for any of them.

+

“Dom, I’m – I’m sorry,” Arthur said, the moment Dom opened the door to his house. “Are you – of course you’re not okay. Is there anything I can do, anything at all?”

Dom looked years older, halved, half-gone. His face twisted into something almost too painful to watch, and he said, “She thought we were in a dream. She thought she’d wake up if she…” he trailed off, and Arthur stepped closer, hesitating for a second before putting a hand on his shoulder. Dom was shaking ever so slightly. “Arthur, they think I killed her. She – she filed a letter, before killing herself.”

Arthur’s eyes widened. “What are you going to do?”

“I got a call yesterday… Archer Industries wants me to do a job for them.”

“What kind of job?”

“Extraction,” Dom replied, after a pause. 

Arthur had no doubt it was the illegal kind of extraction. And he had no doubt that he’d follow Cobb and help him.

“Okay. If you do it, I’m in. Call me with a location.”

Dom shook his head. “Arthur, you don’t have to -”

“I know I don’t have to,” Arthur interrupted him, “I want to.” 

He could’ve said more – he could’ve told Dom that without him, Arthur would be stuck in a 9 to 5 job, helpless and frustrated. Could’ve told him that wiping the mat with him in that karate lesson was one of the most fortuitous things that ever happened to him, and that he’d never stop being grateful. But he didn’t have to, because Dom knew. For Arthur, it wasn’t a struggle to choose this, to follow him once more. It felt right, just like accepting Dom’s invitation to the lab all those years ago had felt. 

“Thank you,” Dom said after a moment, something so fiercely grateful in his eyes that it bruised Arthur’s heart.

And that was how Dominic Cobb and his protégé went from respected dream researchers to extractors for hire.

+

They did well enough on the Archer job by themselves, and word got out on the street, which meant more work. More work complicated things, though, because two men did not a team make, especially not when Cobb was so strung out. And then there was the shade of Mal hanging around, slowly but surely becoming more and more disruptive.

Dom had changed – there was little joy in navigating dreams for him now, it was nothing but a skill to sell. And Arthur changed, too, he had to. Mal’s death meant he couldn’t ignore the danger he’d feared so long ago, the danger in dreaming, and the danger in living, too. He had to harden himself, make himself completely reliable, or neither of them was going to make it. 

It was only a matter of time before they had to call Eames, and it was as incredibly awkward as Arthur feared it would be.

“Okay, darling?” were the first words he said, when Arthur opened the door of the building they were holed up in. 

There were too many ways to answer that, everything from _kiss me_ to _fuck you_ , so Arthur simply raised an eyebrow, face carefully blank, and said, “Well enough.”

If Eames felt chastened by the cold reception, he didn’t show it, and it only infuriated Arthur more. Eames was treating him like he was fragile, just like in Vegas – like Arthur couldn’t handle Mal’s death, Dom, extraction, illegality. He couldn’t stand it, because Eames had given up any right to treat him like _anything_ when he’d walked out of that hotel room in Vegas, and it wasn’t fair of him to show up with soft eyes and soft words, not now. Not when Arthur most needed to hold himself in check.

He led the way to where Dom stood in front of a whiteboard, and took a seat while Dom explained their new situation.

“So, now you’re on my side of the fence, Cobb?” Eames asked, giving Dom a penetrating look.

Dom nodded, saying nothing – the reasons for his change of profession were clear, painfully so.

Eames nodded back. He glanced at Arthur for a second, something sad and longing in his eyes that was gone too soon. As easily as he wore someone else’s skin, he put on a wide smile and a hand on Dom’s shoulder. “Welcome to a life of crime, then. It’s bloody dangerous, but it’s got perks, like obscene amounts of money.”

Arthur appreciated what he was trying to do, he really did, but it didn’t make being stuck in a room with him any easier. If only they knew a better forger. 

Later that night, once Eames had been briefed and they’d come up with the beginnings of a plan for the job, Arthur was packing up and getting ready to leave when he heard voices coming from Dom’s section of their make-shift office.

“… sometimes a drink is the only thing that gets you through the day.”

“I shouldn’t.”

Eames was talking to Dom in a soft voice, extending a bottle of scotch toward him. “This is premium scotch, Cobb. You’re not gonna break my heart by turning it down, boss.”

Dom finally acquiesced, taking the bottle and downing a respectably amount of alcohol. Eames looked satisfied, and even amidst the silence, Arthur could only barely make out his voice when he said, ever so softly, “I’m sorry for your loss, Cobb.”

Arthur stepped away, and when he made it out of the office, he leaned against the wall for a moment. Fucking Eames. He didn’t have the decency of being an asshole so Arthur could ignore him in peace, dismiss him as an annoyance.

And so, to cope, Arthur did the only thing he could do: _he_ behaved like an asshole. He rolled his eyes, questioned the intelligence of most things Eames said, and generally forced himself into believing he couldn’t stand the other man. He let it all out in the most precisely cutting ways he could find: he channeled his frustration and hurt over Eames’ actions into remarks about the unsavory nature of his wardrobe and his terrible habit of improvising rather than sticking to the plan.

Eames rose to the occasion beautifully, sniping back, letting Arthur forget, if only for a while, that they’d ever been anything more than reluctant colleagues. Maybe it was for Arthur’s benefit, maybe it was for both of them. Maybe they’d never gotten far enough in understanding each other that they knew how to mend bridges instead of burning them. 

Dom said nothing, but he gave Arthur pointed glances when their bickering got to be too much.

All three of them were pretty relieved when the damn job was over.

+

When the Cobol job came around, Arthur knew something had to give. Cobb couldn’t build anymore – Mal was showing up in every single dream, more often than not screwing them over, and Dom was using her totem like a madman, spinning the top every few hours to make sure he was awake.

“We need a new architect,” Arthur told him, not even bothering to phrase it as a question.

Dom nodded. “We do. I asked around – there’s this guy, Nash.”

“Can we trust him?”

“As far as we can pay him, I imagine,” Dom replied with a shrug. 

So they did the first Cobol job and got the wrong subject, then went into Saito’s mind and didn’t get all the information, and then, well – then came the inception job, and everything changed again.

+

“You really don’t like Eames, do you?” Ariadne asked, after she’d witnessed one of their more loud bickering matches.

Arthur pressed his lips together. He didn’t know how to say that he _did_ like Eames, far more than he should, and that he hated him a little bit, too, for thinking Arthur couldn’t protect himself and that the best way to do it was breaking his heart; for getting scared and for ruining Arthur for anybody else. Because he’d tried, he had. He’d gone out on a couple of dates, with a boy, with a girl… it never worked. He kept comparing them and finding them wanting, and it got to the point were even hooking up with a perfect stranger was unsatisfying, nothing but a weak facsimile of the real thing. He was reduced to his right hand and memories, and keeping track of where Eames was through a few useful informants and the occasional text message, all business. There were no postcards any more.

In the end, all he could do was shrug, say, “He just gets on my nerves,” and hope it didn’t sound like too much of a lie. It wasn’t even a lie, anyway, not exactly. It was just the least of Arthur’s problems.

Before they got to the airport, Dom reassured him like he always did, saying, “Just another job, Arthur. In, out, we’re done.”

They both knew it was about as far from another job as possible, but Arthur appreciated the effort. He nodded, clapping a hand on Dom’s shoulder, making himself relax and not focus on everything that could go wrong. 

He was hard-pressed to maintain the same focus when things didn’t just go wrong – they went fucking apocalyptic, in between sub-security, Saito getting shot and, hey, the lovely detail Dom forgot to mention about falling into goddamned _limbo_ if they died in the dream.

“Goddamn fucking Cobb,” Arthur muttered, as he worked on Saito.

Saito coughed. “Do not be too angry, Arthur. For those we love, we do even the unthinkable.”

Arthur raised an eyebrow. “I know. And I understand why he did it. Doesn’t mean I’m any less angry – he’s landed us in a no-win situation.”

“Ah. But is this anger useful? If there is indeed no way out of this, perhaps the wise thing would be to forgive.”

Saito started coughing, so Arthur shushed him as he administered just enough morphine to take some of the edge off the pain, but not enough to knock him out. The words stuck with him, though. He thought about Cobb, yes, but also about Eames. 

If this was it, he didn’t want Eames to think Arthur hated him, that he didn’t want him. He was angry, or he had been, but it seemed so inconsequential, caught in the mess they were. He watched Eames saunter as a blonde distraction, recognized the sway of his hips even in female form. Felt the phantom press of those hips against his own, long ago. Too long ago, for men in their line of work. He forced himself to snap back into the job, kissed Ariadne, but only achieved in re-establishing what he already knew: it was Eames. The unlikeliest and best match for him.

 _“Do you know what it is to be a pair?”_ Mal had asked him once, maybe while she was still alive, maybe as Dom’s shade. 

He’d said no, but maybe he did. Maybe it meant a person who had the strengths you didn’t along with the strengths you had – a challenge and a partner and someone who’d send a stuffed parakeet in the mail just to make you smile. 

And he could be way off, he could be romanticizing things because he was closer to death than he’d ever been – maybe Eames was no more his pair than any of the nameless people Arthur had slept with. But he wanted to give himself a chance to find out.

The next time he met Eames’ eyes, he tried to convey as much, but he wasn’t sure he’d succeeded until they were about to enter the third dream.

“Security’s going to be all over you,” Eames told him, as he lay down. 

Arthur could see just how worried he was, even if his tone belied it. It made him want to lean down and kiss him, made him want to say so much of what he’d kept quiet over the years, because if not now, when? But he chose to smirk, say, “And I will lead them on a merry chase.” Maybe if he sounded confident enough he’d actually buy it.

Eames wasn’t quite convinced, apparently, because he frowned ever so slightly. “Just be back before the kick.”

“Go to sleep, Mr. Eames.” 

Eames did, leaving Arthur alone, completely unable to protect him. If the asshole didn’t make it, Arthur was going to drag him back no matter what it took.

They had unfinished business to settle.

+

After they got off the plane, Eames collected his luggage and headed directly to one of the airport bars. Arthur wasn’t far behind – he needed a drink and he needed a steady surface

Once he was seated, and had a martini in front of him, he rolled the die once, waited until it stopped at three. He rolled it again and released a relieved breath when it stopped at three again, and didn’t pause before rolling it one more time. After the job they’d just gone through, he needed all the certainty he could get. 

Three. He wasn’t dreaming. 

Movement nearby caught his eye and he glanced to his side. Eames was sitting two stools away, and he’d taken out a poker chip Arthur thought he recognized, flipping it between his fingers again and again, staring intently at the design. 

Arthur frowned – it couldn’t be.

“Are you… is that a totem?” he asked, his voice soft.

Eames met his eyes, gave him a twisted, sad smile. “Ended up having to use one after all. Found something alluring enough in the dream that I couldn’t have in reality. You know how it is, darling.”

Arthur tried to ignore the painful beating of his heart, the way his throat tightened at Eames’ words. He couldn’t mean him… surely he couldn’t mean him.

Right?

But just in case he did, on the off chance – he couldn’t stay quiet. Not with Mal’s words from so very long ago mixing together with Saito’s advice in his head. Fear, love, forgiveness… He cleared his throat, and turned to look at Eames properly.

“I can take care of myself now,” he started. “I’m not as green as I was years ago.”

“I know,” Eames told him, his voice betraying his confusion.

“Good. Then you should also know that I still haven’t taken it back,” he said, hoping Eames would understand, that he’d remember. “I won’t ever take it back.”

With that, he stood up, and slipped a paper with the name of his hotel and his room number into Eames’ pocket as he walked past him.

 _Alea iacta est_.

+

Eames showed up an hour later, still wearing the all-black ensemble from the plane. He stared at Arthur with something like disbelief mixed with hope, with more. Maybe with love, and maybe he’d always stared at Arthur like that, and Arthur had never wanted to believe it.

“Hello, darling.”

Arthur couldn’t help himself, he couldn’t hold back any more. He grabbed Eames by the lapels of his jacket, and he kissed him. It was a perfect kiss - a kiss that was beautiful and destructive, as much of a challenge as everything had always been with them: a game of one-upmanship that left them gasping for air. Eames grabbed him by the hips and turned him, pushing him against the door with one hand. It took Arthur a few seconds to notice Eames’ other hand was clenched around the poker chip, and he closed his fist over Eames’ carefully so he wouldn’t touch it.

“It’s not a dream, Eames. You can let go.”

“God, I missed you,” Eames muttered against his neck, breathing in deeply.

“So don’t leave me again, asshole,” Arthur replied, dragging Eames into another kiss and biting down on his lower lip.

Eames groaned. “Even I’m not that stupid.”

Arthur pulled back just slightly, meeting Eames’ eyes. “You don’t get to take that back.”

Eames smiled, a soft, private smile Arthur had never seen him give anyone else. “I’m not. Not ever,” he said, echoing Arthur’s promise.

“Good.”

+++

A few months later, Dom invited the team over to his house for a barbecue.

It was dream-like, really, seeing Dom laughing again, chasing Philippa around with Yusuf while Ariadne sat next to James in the grass and helped him dig in the garden. Saito took charge of the grill, to everyone’s amusement and culinary concern, and Eames took it upon himself to be the bartender, unsurprisingly.

“Your martini, darling,” Eames announced, handing Arthur a glass.

Nobody batted an eyelash when Arthur kissed him in thanks; there had been a betting pool, apparently. 

Arthur smiled as he looked around. It was dream-like, but it was vividly, beautifully, perfectly real.

He’d never set out to navigate people’s dreams; it wasn’t what he thought he’d be when he grew up, and he’d never written an essay in middle school about it. But it turned out to be the best thing he could’ve chosen, because Dom taught him how to dream, Mal taught him how to wake up, and Eames – Eames taught him how to live.

_i would like to follow_  
you up the long stairway  
again  & become  
the boat that would row you back  
carefully, a flame  
in two cupped hands  
to where your body lies  
beside me, and you enter  
it as easily as breathing in  
\- margaret atwood 


End file.
